I’ll bet you’re wondering if I’m going to be talking about the mostest importantest election ever today. Frankly, I don’t see why I have to. It’s not like there were any huge surprises last night. I mean, I went to bed thinking that my district had decided that Gerry Connelly was the best man for the job. Of course, before him, we had Tom Davis, so I’d rather have an outright communist than a lukewarm communist in office. It amusing to hear Connelly saying he was a pragmatic moderate.
That’s one thing that I find irritating. People in mainstream politics seem to imply that you’re only pragmatic if you’re moderate and that it’s a good thing to work with both sides. Like it’s some weird badge of honor to be understanding and agreeable. While it is certainly important to understand people, it doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. I love how Connelly declared this as if he was trying to prove it to himself. I think he knows what he really is and that he just simply can’t admit it openly.
Which is always a fun thing too. You’ll never see a politician admit openly that he or she is a communist or a Socialist. In American politics, you may as well say you’re a baby cannibal. So you have to say that you’re a moderate or a progressive, otherwise the dumb masses won’t vote for you. It’s a wonder that they haven’t come up with a new term for themselves now. Pretty much every other term is derogatory within conservative circles. Much like how capitalist is derogatory among communists.
Karl Marx came up with the term capitalist. Or so I was told somewhere a short while ago. It’s interesting if true because many liberty-minded individuals have adopted the term and wear it proudly. I personally prefer to use “free-market individual” myself. This is because the term itself has been co-opted by so many groups that it means nothing anymore.
We are truly not in a free market in America, despite what the progressives may say. All property could be owned and distributed by the government and still they would say that capitalism is ruining our country. It’s a shame, though, because most Americans actually believe that we are a capitalist nation. Or rather, a free-market nation. We are not and haven’t been since at least 1890 with the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act. That was the turning point when the politics of envy became the dominant force in public discourse.
The politics of envy are hard to combat. At times I find myself a bit envious of what the rich have. But I know that material things break down after a while, usually sooner than you expect. Plus, life is largely pointless from a secular perspective, so why bother getting crap you can’t be buried with? But it’s hard to tell others that they are committing one of the seven deadly sins by voting for more welfare programs and expanding entitlement spending.
Voters are a funny bunch really. They want the government to give them free money but they also want the government to leave them alone. Of course, they don’t want them to leave their neighbor alone. If their neighbor isn’t on dope, they are probably suffering from cancer and don’t have insurance. So with a caring heart, they vote to have a gun pointed at them and have their money taken by a government thug or nerd in what can only be described as a radically underfunded charity event.
And thus, we come full circle to see that the Republicans have taken the House because of the sheer ineptness of the Obama administration and the Democrat controlled Congress. At least Bush held things together for four years when Republicans had total control. Personally, I look forward to the deadlock and government shutdowns. Here on the rim of insanity, when the government shuts down and Federal workers aren’t allowed to show up for work, it’s a good day to drive into my office. I love working in the private sector. There’s more freedom and no guilt associated with being a parasite on the productive.